Tribune owner makes bid for Globe

The owner of The Tampa Tribune is among a pack of several bidders in the running to acquire the Boston Globe newspaper from its present owner, according to local Boston media reports.

The New York Times Co. is the current owner of the Boston Globe, and is entertaining offers from several outside bidders on the property, which the Times has recently put back on the market. Bids are due June 27.

Tribune President and Publisher Bill Barker said he could not comment on any potential deal in the works, but he did note that officials with Tribune owner Revolution Capital Group are pleased with the Tribune since purchasing the paper in October, and a potential deal for the Globe would fit with Revolution's business model.

Revolution is a private equity company that specializes in acquiring, among other things, struggling divisions of large, well-established companies, and then restructuring those operations to grow again. Barker noted that the Revolution-owned Tampa Media Group that now owns the Tribune recently acquired the Clearwater Gazette weekly in Pinellas County, bolstering its holdings and distribution across the wider Tampa Bay area.

Also, like the Tampa Bay region, the Boston area has competition between daily newspapers - the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. Revolution founder Robert Loring, 48, graduated from Boston College, and at one time worked as a sportswriter at the Boston Herald in the 1990s.

The New York Times Co. hopes to sell its New England Media Group, which includes the Globe, BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com, plus The Worcester Telegram & Gazette and other media properties.

Citing unnamed sources briefed on the situation, the Globe listed several bidders, including former magazine executive Jack Griffin and two members of the Taylor family, which sold the Globe to the Times 20 years ago, plus the Kraft Group, which owns the New England Patriots football team.

Notably, another potential bidder is Douglas Manchester, who acquired the U-T San Diego newspaper from Los Angeles-based Platinum Equity, where Robert Loring once worked.

The Boston Globe had a weekday circulation of 230,351 and Sunday circulation of 372,541, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. That makes the Globe somewhat larger than the Tribune, which grew daily circulation 32.6 percent to 191,477 for the period ending March 31, and grew the Sunday circulation 7 percent to 281,086.